Notes and Stories from Deanie Bramlett Beazley


"My Daddy, Raleigh Edgar Bramlett (born 9/17/1879 in Round Mt., AL) said that his father, Elisha Marion Bramlett (born abt 1849 in Dalton, GA) and his family were living in Georgia during the War Between the States. When Gen. Sherman made his wide swarth through that state, they stole everything they found - chickens, pigs, vegetables - everything. Elisha was in his early teens then and was not in the War, but his brothers were Confederate soldiers.  The Bramletts, hiding with others from the wreckage of the Sherman drive, went into a nearby wood, carrying with them the only food they had - cornbread and molasses. What "Mad Dog" Sherman and his group didn't steal, they burned. Elisha's parents were Reuben E. and Sarah Bramlett.

Another story Daddy told was that one night the Bramlett family, Elisha and his parents Reuben E. and Sarah Bramlett, were at the evening meal when a knock at the door was answered by Reuben E.  When he opened the door, a man or men shot and killed him.  The identity of the murderer was never known.  It was thought to be a dispute concerning the War but never really understood.

Another war story came from Roberta O'Barr, then five years old. Later, she married Elisha Marion Bramlett. She said that when Sherman and the Union troops came through Georgia, she could hear the guns thundering, and frightened, she took refuge beneath her bed.  Roberta, in her teens, became friends with Ellen Louise Axson. They were members of the same Presbyterian church in Rome, GA. Ellen later married Woodrow Wilson, president of the United States. Her [Ellen's] father was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Rome for several years.

Daddy, Raleigh Bramlett, said the [earliest] Bramlett as far back as he knew, was the captain of a ship.  He also said that during the war (I think W.W. I) there was a Lady Bramlett in England.

Raleigh lived in West Plains, Missouri, when he was in his teen years.  He told me of some shoes he was so proud of.  They had brass toes, and he went about kicking everything!"


From Deanie Bramlett Beazley, written in the summer of 1997.
Follow up from her daughter, Jean Guice: "Mother's father, Raleigh Edgar Bramlett, went to Arkansas with his father when he was a young man. He died in El Dorado, Ark. in 1957."

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